It Runs In the Family
by bcsbookworm
Summary: What is Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, weren't the only Penvensies to enter into Narnia? What if, someone else in their family had known Narnia before the White Witch made it Winter, but never Christmas?


**I do not own Narnia. I simply look for it in closets.**

Mr. Pevensie smiled down at the letter in his hands, written in his wife's neat, curvy handwriting. So the children had been sent to their godfather, Professor Kirk. Mr. Pevensie tucked the letter into a pocket on the inside of his uniform jacket, the sense that his children were now safe from the bombs coming down on London washing over him, creating a peace he had not known since he had entered into the army.

"Good news from home, Colin?" Joshua Smith, a friend and bunk mate, asked as he stepped up beside Colin Pevensie.

"My children got safely out of London," Colin replied. "They're going to live with their godfather. A Professor Kirk who lives three hours out of London. Owns a country manor . . . away from the world."

"Sounds like a nice place," Joshua replied. "Have the kids ever met him?"

"Oh . . . once or twice. They like him. He's a bit eccentric really." Colin laughed. "I had lots of fun at his manor house when I was a boy. He's like an uncle to me really. Was more of a father than my father ever was."

Joshua clapped Colin on the back.

"Then be glad your kids are there," he said. "Your boys will finally have some male time with an older gentleman."

"Yes . . . I hope it'll do some good. My wife wrote that my youngest boy was changed after attending the boarding school we sent him and his brother to. And not in the good way."

"Huh. Well . . . you said he was what? Ten? Boys will be boys. He will grow out of it."

Colin Pevensie hoped his friend was correct.

U U U U

He knew his children were changed. That much was obvious.

They almost seemed older, though two weren't even teenagers yet.

There just was an air about them that breathed maturity, yet playful youth.

Peter seemed to have calmed down his hot-temper, not that it was totally gone, but under control. It was Magnificent, the way he could control his temper. Susan seemed to be, while still motherly and liking logic, much more flexible with change. There was a Gentleness about her that he had always known was there, but had never truly seen until now. Edmund was smiling and laughing, though at times there was something in his eyes, a hidden pain and sadness. But there was something about him, something about the Just way he settled arguments between the siblings. A Just majority that hadn't been there before. And Lucy . . . dear sweet Lucy . . . she spoke with confidence that he never saw in one so young. The way she spoke and went about things, in such a Valiant way, was stunning.

"Are these are children?" Colin asked his wife one night a week or two after his return.

"Yes," Helen replied. "You've noticed the change too? I swear, your uncle is quite the man. The time in the country with the professor did them all good. Particularly Edmund. I've never seen him so . . . so at peace. But . . ."

"But there's something in his eyes," Colin said.

"Yes." His wife pecked him on the cheek. "I like the change though. Our children are growing up. Perhaps they won't go into the rebellious stage some of our friends have experienced with their children."

"Maybe."

He hadn't meant to stay up so late, but by the time he was finished with the paperwork he had been given, it was going on eleven o'clock. Everyone was in bed, including his wife. With a sigh and a stretch, Colin stood and turned off the lights of his study before making his way upstairs. As he passed the boys' bedroom, he heard whimpers.

"Ed! Ed, wake up! It's just a dream!"

Quietly, Colin tiptoed to the door of the bedroom and opened the door enough to peer in, but not give himself away. He watched as his oldest, Peter, sat on the edge of the bed of his younger brother. Edmund was tossing and turning in his bed, the sheets twisting nastily around his legs.

"Ed!" Peter shook the boy and Edmund jerked away, gasping heavily for air.

"Edmund, it's me," Peter said, gently placing a hand on the boy's shoulder and using the other hand to untangle the sheets around the younger boy's legs.

"Peter?" Edmund whispered.

"Sh. It's all right."

"It was _Her_, Edmund! I couldn't stop her!"

"She's gone, Edmund. Jadis the White Witch is _gone_."

Jadis the White Witch? A chill went up Colin's spine. He hadn't heard that name for a long time, but she hadn't been a White Witch.

"I tried to stop her, but she wouldn't stop! And all of Narnia perished because she wouldn't stop!" Peter pulled Edmund up into a sitting position and wrapped his arms around him tightly.

Colin stood in shock at the doorway. Had he heard correctly? Narnia?

He pushed the door open and both boys looked up in surprise.

Colin flicked the lights on and studied his two boys. Everything he had just heard went around and around in his mind and suddenly, he understood the change in his children. Looking at his sons, he now understood. They had both been touched by Aslan.

"Tell me everything," he said, coming and sitting on the other side of Edmund's bed. "Tell me of your adventures in Narnia."

"Dad?" Peter questioned.

"The last time I was there, there was relative peace, with Jadis the Witch living in the far north with the giants," Colin told them. "And Cair Paravel was just being built. What happened?"

For a moment neither son spoke. Then Edmund opened his mouth and began to talk.

They told him about the wardrobe (Colin chuckled as he remembered that he had never told the Professor about it), about how the White Witch had put Narnia under Winter for one hundred years. Always Winter, but never Christmas. And how Lucy first found the land, how Edmund went with the White Witch, but how there was redemption and forgiveness, sacrifice and a battle. There was a coronation on the four thrones of Cair Paravel and how they lived there for over twenty years. They told him how they forgot about this world until they fell back through the wardrobe when they had been out hunting the White Stag.

"I never though . . ." Colin chuckled. "I never thought that the professor knew about Narnia. I suppose I should have thought it, as he does own the wardrobe." He pulled his sons close. "I am so glad that you have found that place."

"How many times have you been?" Edmund wanted to know.

"Only once," Colin replied. "But the Professor is right. You'll probably end up there when you least expect it." He laughed. "And I realize it must be difficult to have to grow up again, but please be patient and take in the experiences that this world has to give you." He kissed them both on the heads and then stared at them for a moment before saying in quite a disbelieving, yet awe filled tone,

"Once a king and queen or Narnia, always a king and queen of Narnia."


End file.
